


only need the light when it's burning low

by soulfulnocturnal



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Collegestuck, Humanstuck, M/M, visceralstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-07
Updated: 2012-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-18 03:38:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulfulnocturnal/pseuds/soulfulnocturnal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then you have one of your bad days and you forget all about the movie and Aradia comes over and lets you put your head in her lap while she strokes your hair and tells you that it’s okay, you didn’t mean it, but it’s not fucking okay because it keeps fucking happening AA, I’m so fucking sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	only need the light when it's burning low

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know what this is but im proud of it  
> i just wanted to write humanstuck sollux because i love everything about humanstuck sollux  
> trigger warnings: drug use, self harm, general angstyness  
> enjoy

This thing inside you – it’s madness.

It’s soaring highs where you don’t sleep for days and pages and pages of code and twitching muscles and thoughts so big they could swallow the universe.

It’s crippling lows where you can’t get out of bed, you can’t eat and everything tastes like shit anyway and you just want to diediedie but you can’t because you’re still human enough to know there are people you’d leave behind. People you love but wish you didn’t. People you wish didn’t love you.

If there wasn’t love, you think, this would be so much easier.

When you’re low, you’re low. You’ll stare at the bottles of pills – prescription and otherwise – that sit in your bathroom cabinet and you imagine. Which ones would kill you the fastest? Which ones would ensure you couldn’t be brought back? You start to envy roadkill as you drive around town and you know things are really fucking bad.

But just as quickly as you spiral suddenly your mind is clear and you're back online again. You talk to your friends and they’re _s0 happy t0 see you back s0llux_ and for a while everything’s okay. You make plans with Aradia and Feferi to go see a movie and Karkat calls you a _MOTHERFUCKING SKINNY-ASS EXCUSE FOR A PIMP_ and you laugh at him and everything’s okay.

Then you have one of your bad days and you forget all about the movie and Aradia comes over and lets you put your head in her lap while she strokes your hair and tells you that _it’s okay, you didn’t mean it_ , but it’s not fucking okay because _it keeps fucking happening AA, I’m so fucking sorry._

College is exhausting. People are exhausting. You don’t understand how everyone else can function so perfectly without getting so goddamn tired. Your friends don’t leave you alone like you keep telling them to and you’re not sure how to feel about that. Eridan told you once that you’d be _motherfuckin six feet under without them Sol_ and it’s true. Karkat stays up until the early hours of the morning with you when you’re manic and crazy and keeps up a stream of grey syntax that distracts you from other things and switches on and off with Aradia during the downswings. Gamzee doesn’t sleep either and sometimes he’ll come over in the middle of the night with weed and pills and anything else you ask him for. Sometimes Karkat comes with him and sometimes if he’s high enough he’ll let you snuggle close to him and you can both pretendpretendpretend that the three of you aren’t fucking crazy.

Sometimes you kiss him and he tastes like cigarettes and something sweet.

You never talk about that though even when it keeps happening.

You turn nineteen and things get worse. You mess around with adrenaline thrills in the in-betweens and almost get busted by the cops when you go out with Tavros and Gamzee to paint beautiful things on the concrete walls of the city. For a kid with metal legs, Tavros sure can run. You try to teach parkouring to Karkat but the kid falls on his ass too much for it to be any fun for him so you do it alone, almost breaking your arm more time than you’d ever tell anyone.

Your dads ring a lot and you wish that each I love you didn’t sound so much like a guilt trip. You stop answering for a while when things get bad but finally Dad 1 gets through to you via Aradia and his voice is everything you don’t want to hear.

_“Do you know what you’re doing to us? Do you even care?”_

_“I’m fucking sorry, okay? Just leave me alone for fuck’s sakes. I’m fine.”_

But you’re not.

You go offline for days and days and you don’t eat or sleep for even longer. You do drink though. Lots and lots and lots. Karkat lets himself into your room – single dorm, praise Jegus – and almost has a heart attack at the state he finds you in.

“Sollux you motherfucker.” He growls as he wrestles you out of your vomit-stained shirt, “I’m going to fucking kill you. I will fucking strangle you with your own goddamn entrails after I slice you open and then I’m going to stitch you back up and do it all over again.”

You don’t even have the energy to resist as he pulls your pants off as well and shoves you underneath the warm spray of the shower, getting in after you with his clothes still on.

“If you wanted to see me naked this bad, KK,” You mumble, “all you had to do was ask.”

“Go fuck yourself with something sharp and rusty, Captor.” He washes you and dries you off and manages to get you into a pair of boxers before you refuse to cooperate anymore and he has to drag you into your bed. 

He sits with you as you toss and turn and mumble things about death because the voices are louder than ever nowadays and you don’t know what to do. You tell Karkat he’s going to die, that you’re all going to die, and then you whisper something in his ear that makes him stand up and leave your bedroom.

You hear the sound of glass shattering and a strangled scream and then he’s back.

“Don’t ever fucking say that again, understand?” He sounds like he might be crying but you’re not even sure any of this is real.

In the morning when you wake up and Karkat is dozing beside you, your mouth tastes like acid and you remember what you said.

_I really want to die KK. I want to die all the time and I think I know how I’m going to do it._

You curl up beside Karkat and feel empty.

You hate him like you hate Aradia and your Dads because this is one more person that’s stopping you from doing what you so desperately fucking need to.  
You hate yourself for even thinking like that.

You hate everything.

And just like that someone’s flipped a switch in your brain and you’re okay again. Eridan invites you to a party and you go because why not? You both drink far too much and he kisses you and you let him. His hands run all over you and his touch is kind of electrifying so you let him do that too. He tells you he thinks you’re a _motherfuckin asshole_ as you fall into bed together but all you do is laugh.

_I am a motherfucking asshole Eridan, glad to see you’ve caught up with the rest of the class._

You wake up with the taste of him still on your lips and the beginnings of a headache throbbing at your temples. The two of you smoke cigarettes on the balcony and he asks you if you’re okay. You threaten to push him off the edge if he asks you that again.

You go back to your dorm and collapse on your bed and don’t move for a few hours.

Months pass and things get worse for everyone. Karkat rings you in the early hours of the morning because Gamzee’s missing and he can’t find him alone. You get out of bed without a second thought and meet up with him and the two of you spend hours searching the campus for the schizo clown. Tavros eventually calls and says Gamzee has ended up at Tavros’ dorm and there’s fresh needle marks on his forearms. Karkat swears loudly and looks like he’s about to lose it so you grab the phone and ask Tavros if Gamzee could stay there.

It’s an affirmative yes, of course, that’s fine so you take Karkat back to his room and he’s shaking and swearing and _he fucking promised me he was going to quit, he fucking promised me Sollux but why did I expect any different? I’ve got assholes for friends and none of you can take care of yourselves it’s like I turn my back for two fucking seconds and Gamzee’s having a breakdown or you’re low again and it’s not like my head’s a fun fucking place to be either you know._

You do know. You’ve seen the scars that line the otherwise perfect underside of Karkat’s arms only once and that was when you were both doped out of your mind but you know they’re there. You don’t know if he still does it. You hope he doesn’t.

You kiss him hard and he kisses you back, all tongue and teeth and rage and sadness and you wonder if he loves you too.

You don’t have sex. You think about trying but dismiss the thought as quickly as it enters your head. Karkat’s not like Eridan. You climb into bed together and he lays his head on your chest and tells you that you better not ever try and commit because he doesn’t know what he’d do. You’re high not low so you tell him _I won’t KK, not today._

But neither of you says anything about tomorrow.


End file.
